this shit is always a trade. I'm a Boomer but I'm not a Luddite so I like all this stuff but what braincells I have left can only be challenged so much. I like having access to an amazing number of things enough that I'm apparantly willing to trade my old fashioned concept of privacy for it. Alexa, roll me a fat one!
I'm getting less stubborn about certain things and I guess vast societal change is among them. I DO think there's good along with the bad. since "good" and "bad" are pretty personal concepts let me state that differently. some things I think are great and some things bug me.
One thing that bugs me (about tablets & smartphones) is how the youngsters seem uniquely wired up to them. I swear there is some creepy "Village of the Damned" thing going on. sit your smart phone down in front of a youngster if you dare. Lord only knows what they will have done by the time you get it back.
weirdly, this might turn out to have good things come from it. Kids I've seen grow up grokking smart phones a little too easily seem to develop a monstrous facility for multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is one of the things I'm not very good at so I can appreciate it when I see it. My wife comments that kids are just sitting around looking at their phones - it's true, she's right, they are. BUT, if you hang around for a while you'll see they are doing 8 other things. they are planning, always planning. they are joking around with each other. It's easy to see they aren't putting on a show behind the barn but they ain't Mickey & Judy. I think the way they relate to each other has changed.
Adults told me to turn off the TV and go outside. they told me that sitting around the radio was WAY more civilized. maybe they were right. I don't think sitting in front of a TV is more civilized than circle jerking with smart phones - on the contrary. they can text behind somebody's back while that person is talking. they can post a picture of my ass hanging out of my pants before I even know I need to pull them up. they are ready to wrap burgers while talking to different people and making change. I never will be.
PET PEEVES:
"Unboxing" - I got this thing. it came in this box. it looks like this. I like it. I'm using it. isn't it great?
they think "Beverly Hillbillies" is boring but they can watch THIS shit for hours!
YELP - not a peeve with the youngsters really. I think YELP, like Facebook has crossed the Jordan to middle-agers. Like Facebook I think YELP (and it's many cousins) have changed a lot of the way we interact with each other. I fucking HATE YELP. I only fill them out when a merchant asks me too. on one hand I think People Bitching on the Internet is the worst thing in the world. BUT, the more you think about it - people bitching on the internet has POWER. sure, it's the same power assholes have always had & it's mostly assholes that use it. If you've worked retail then you know that the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. It's more cost effective (apparently) to give unreasonable assholes what they want then it is to expect management to stand until the Next Ice Age listening to them complain. so, somebody who has treated you like shit gets what they want and a little something extra for being an asshole. what do YOU get for following company policy & being as polite as you possibly can? you get more interaction with this asshole and the assholes in training that may have been hanging around taking notes. this was a problem before YELP. YELP has advanced it to atomic bug-monster proportions.
so, you eat a burger, the guy asks, you write: Mmm. good burger. He asks this because somebody wrote a Tolstoy length diatribe about how long it took them to get a glass of water or some shit.
I like the new stuff. I used to stand in front of magazine stands when I had long lunch breaks. now I carry a magazine stand around in my pocket (sort of)
yeah, the way people use it will change us as a society in ways both obvious and subtle. When VCR's first came out they must have made a billion dollars in porno. well, we also got that "criterion collection" stuff eventually. every new way of doing things is going to appeal to the lower chakras first. I'm cool with that. I love my lower chakras. still, what matters is what stays and what falls away. there's no way to know how that's going to pan out.
it's easy to see the grim prospects but I think there are other prospects too. Every so often people can all care about something that really matters at the same time. this is no small thing.